Cheese + bread = genius

Photo credit: hellaoakland

Grilled cheese sandwiches seem to hold a special spot in a lot of peoples' hearts, no doubt because so many grew up eating them as kids. (Yours truly excluded, however, as I didn't have my first grilled cheese until high school or so. I'm a freak, I know.) It's not hard to see why these sandwiches are so popular in households with young children; kids love the cheesy, buttery taste, and they're fairly easy to make. Throw some bread, cheese, and butter in a pan, and voilà! You've got yourself a quick and easy meal.

Or is it really that simple? Participants of the Annual National Grilled Cheese Invitiational don't seem to think so. Here, people use their wits and grilling skills to battle it out in the hopes of being crowned grilled cheese champion. It sounds like a fun and entertaining event, but if you read over the information page, you can see that the event organizers take it Very Seriously. Judging (which anyone is welcome to do, and for free to boot!) is done by the use of standardized ballots, and trophies are awarded to those that place first, second, and third in each catagory, which are as follows:

The Missionary Position: White bread, orange cheese (Cheddar or American) and butter or margarine only.

Spoons: Any kind of bread, any kind of butter and any kind of cheese (or combination of cheeses) but no additional ingredients.

The Kama Sutra: Any kind of bread, any kind of butter, and any kind of cheese (or blend of cheeses) plus additional ingredients.

The Honey Pot: Any kind of bread, any kind of butter, any kind of cheese (or blend of cheeses), and any additional ingredients, but a sandwich that is sweet in flavor, or would best be served as dessert.

I have to admit that it never occurred to me to use cheese that isn't Cheddar or American, but my mouth is positively watering at the thought of all of these tasty concoctions. If you've got the same craving and you happen to be in the Los Angeles area on April 19, make it a point to attend the Invitational and have a few sammiches (their loving term for sandwiches). The rest of us will have to live vicariously through you and hope that the Invitational rolls through our towns sometime in the near future.

While we're on the subject of grilled cheese, here are some more links for your viewing pleasure:

• 10 Tips for the Greatest Grilled Cheese via Yahoo! Food.

• April is National Grilled Cheese Month. I kid you not.

• Grilled cheese sandwiches the Benny & Joon way. Can you really make grilled cheese with a clothes iron like Johnny Depp's character?

• A grilled cheese sandwich bearing an image of the Virgin Mary sold for $28,000 in 2004. I don't know about you, but if I had that kind of money, I'd rather use it to buy lots and lots of non-visaged grilled cheese. But that's just me.